My knuckles are raw, I literally have to rip this thing out at a certain angle, and when I do, my knuckles grate against the teeth of the strap no matter what I do. At this rate I will have to tape my knuckles to go boarding, at least on my left hand.

The release is functional until it begins to add pressure, i.e. do it's job. If there is no boot in or it's not cranked much it's not an issue, but once a boot is in there and there is downward pressure being applied it becomes a 60 second ordeal that -always- ends in me scraping my knuckles at high speed against the teeth of the binding.

I'm good at finding work-arounds, angles, etc to make things work, but this just seems completely foreign to me, I really don't know what is causing this, but I've heard it's a common issue..

edit:solution found. cause: too much upward tugging, you really have to give it some downward pressure first to loosen it and then pull up once you can feel it loosen,

Yeah, def press and lift simultaneously. Be careful not to over-tighten too. These ratchets can really crush your toe box. Most other ratchets stop before they get that tight but these things can just keep on going.